In the last year, food insecurity has nearly doubled throughout the world, including the United States.  El Paso has seen an increase of families needing food after the life-changing impact of COVID in 2020.  San Pablo Lutheran Church, partnering with Ysleta Lutheran Mission Human Care (YLM) has been working non-stop to provide this needed resource to the surrounding community.

“We always had a mix of people from El Paso and Juarez coming to seek food,” Maritza Muñoz, a member of San Pablo Lutheran Church and one of YLM’s volunteers, shared, “When the border closed for those who were not citizens or residents, our numbers dropped almost in half on the first Saturday after lockdown back in March.”

Many who come to receive food boxes are elderly and living in disability

Within weeks, those low numbers started to increase, with new families coming every Saturday to register and receive food boxes generously filled with produce and non-perishable food items.  As people drive into the San Pablo/YLM campus, they are greeted by smiles, starting with Maritza, who takes down their information for record-keeping purposes.

“My food stamps got cancelled and I don’t know why,” an elderly lady shared one Saturday as she walked in to pick up food boxes, “I have enough to pay rent and bills but not much is leftover for food.  This helps me a lot.”

Core team of volunteers assemble close to 100 food boxes by 7:30am

A small core of volunteers who come every Saturday morning start early at 6am, bringing out the produce from the walk-in cooler located in the kitchen at the other side of the campus from where the distribution takes place.  Boxes are quickly assembled, tables set up for ease of filling boxes.  There’s a rhythm to the assembling process that makes it possible to have almost one hundred boxes ready to go by 7:30am.

The flow of this process makes it possible for new volunteers to join in on the fun of serving others.  As the year progresses, churches are reaching out to Adopt the Food Pantry on a quarterly or monthly basis.

Friendly and helpful is what people encounter of all volunteers during the Drive-Thru Food Pantry

“It’s important for us to cultivate a spirit of service in our youth,” Luz Soto, member at Ascension Lutheran Church in west El Paso and Director of Youth Ministry, explained on why the youth committed to adopting the food pantry once every three months, “For our youth, coming all the way to the Lower Valley from the West side of El Paso is like experiencing something new.  They’ve enjoyed being able to just jump right into the process and spend several hours working non-stop for the purpose of showing love and care to others.”

Cleaning up takes thirty minutes and is done with the same joy as the distribution

In 2020, due to COVID restrictions, San Pablo and YLM had to limit their Saturday volunteers to ten, which led to bonds being created between those who came every Saturday.  Now, they are here to help do something they have come to love, seeing how blessed they are to be able to serve their community.

Now, in 2021, Adopt the Food Pantry is opening up to give community leaders, such as churches, organizations, and companies, an opportunity to give to their community in a simple yet very impactful way.  Several local churches, such as Ascension and CrossPoint, have already scheduled their quarterly Saturdays to bring in a team of volunteers to help distribute to over 200 El Pasoan families.

If you would like to schedule a Saturday where your church, organization, company, or family

can Adopt the Food Pantry, please call (915) 858-2588 to speak to Miguel Muñoz or email him at miguel.munoz@ylm.org